Simon, (Sir) Leon
The case of the anti-Zionists
he Case of the
Anti-Zionists :
A REPLY
by
LEON SIMON
Published by the Zionist Organisation, London Bureau,
35-38, Empire House, 175, Piccadilly,
London, W. I.
1917.
^^
The Case of the Anti-Zionists:
A REPLY.
The appearance in rapid succession of four1 pamphlets
directed against Zionism, printed by the same Press and circu-
lated gratis to the same favoured individuals, is a clear
indication of concerted action on the part of a small group of
Jews who arc opposed to Zionism. Yet the pamphlets them-
selves contain no hint of any avowal of common inspiration
or purpose. There is nothing in any of them to show what
Society or Association is behind this sudden blossoming of anti-
Zionist literature. That is a fact which deserves noting at the
outset as betokening a certain unwillingness on the part of
these gentlemen to avow openly the obvious truth that they
have set their heads together to deal a series of blows at Zionism.
It looks as though they would like it to be believed that Sir
Philip Magnus, Mr. Claude Montefiore, Mr. Laurie Magnus
and Mr. Lucien Wolf have come separately and independently
to the conclusion that this is the time to publish an anti-Zionist
pronouncement. We do not, of course, suggest that they arc
deliberately playing a game of that kind ; if they had been
doing so, they would not have made the unavowed fact of joint
action so apparent as it is. But they are clearly trying to get
1 Since this reply whs written there has reappeared, with a new cover
but otherwise without change, a sermon entitled " The Mission of the Jew",
which was delivered last Pentecost by the Rev. Ephraim Levine, M.A., at the
New West End Synagogue, and was printed shortly afterwards (" with one
or two alterations "). This pamphlet bears no name of printer or publisher,
but there is evidence of its connection with the present anti-Zionist campaign
in the fact that a new print of it is given to the world just at this time, in its
external appearance and type, and in the fact that it contains an attack on
Zionism and Zionists. This attack, which appears to be dragged in without
relevance to the rest of the sermon, shows no trace of any attempt on the part
of its author to understand what Zionism is, or to familiarise himself with
the most elementary facts about the Jewish problem. We should be paying
it an undeserved compliment if we treated it seriously.
the best of both worlds. They wish to produce alJ the effect
of a conceited attack without incurring the odium thai might
attach to a self-confessed attempt to organise a movement
against Zionism.
Another point Worthy of note is the fact that none of the
four pamphlets has been wholly written for the occasion.
Three of the four may aptly be described as " dug-outs."
4t Jewish Action and Jewish Ideals," by Sir Philip Magnus.
Bart., M.l\. first appeared in the Jewish Chronicle as far back
as November 13th, 1891. It is reprinted now with a few foot-
notes added. "Nation or Heligious Community?" by Claude
ti. Montefiore, M.A., is a Presidential Address delivered before
the Jewish Historical Society of England on December Jird,
1899, and is reprinted without change from Vol. IV. of tin
Transactions of that Society. " Zionism and the Neo-Zionists,"
by Laurie Magnus, M.A. (Temp. Major, Royal Defence Corps),
consists in the main of passages from a book published in 1902.
Only the. remaining pamphlet tL The Jewish National Move-
ment," by Lucien Wolf which is reprinted without change
from the Edinburgh Review of April, 1917, is of recenl date.
(Had Mr. Wolf chosen, like his friends, to resurrect something
from the more distant past, he could have reprinted the
sympathetic article on Zionism which In- wrote for the
Encyclopasdia Britannica in L908.) Now a pamphlet is not, of
course, necessarily less valuable or weighty because it is old.
Hut the reflection inevitably suggests itself that whereas ;i new
Zionist literature has been produced in this country by a group
of young writers during the last two years, anti-Zionism is so
largely dependent for its controversial output on the resuscitated
writings of men who said their say a score of years ago. Where,
one is compelled to ask, are the young anti-Zionists'.'' If the
aims of Zionism are so dangerous to Judaism, so desperately
opposed to the true mission of the Jewish people, and if emanci-
pation and assimilation mark the true line of Jewish progress.
why is there not a rally of young and ardent spirits to the cause
which Sir Philip Magnus and Mr. Claude Montefiore have
championed for so long ? We are far from suggesting that the
young are necessarily right, and their elders necessarily wrong ;
but is there not some significance in the fact that the young
and forward-looking men, with whom the future is likely to
rest, are inspired by the Zionist ideal to throw their weight
on the side of the great body of the Jewish people, while
the defence of the opposite point of view is left to the
"old guard"?
The four anti-Zionist pamphlets which we are here con-
sidering vary greatly in quality. Sir Philip Magnus' Jewish
Chronicle article is short and superficial, and is pitched in flu-
key of preaching rather than in that of argument. Mr. Claude
Montefiore writes like a scholar and a sincere seeker after truth,
with whom it is a pleasure to break a lance, because, though
his view is in our opinion distorted, it is evidently the truth
and nothing but the truth that he desires. Mr. Laurie Magnus
is " clever," and writes with an air of superiority which is more
amusing than annoying. Mr. Lucien Wolf, with his pretentious
and seemingly impartial presentment of a subject with which
he betrays but the slightest acquaintance, drags us down to
the level of ordinary controversial pamphleteering. In this
kind of writing, in which the object is not to enunciate or to
ascertain the truth, but simply to score points, Mr. Wolf is a
past master ; but on this occasion, as we shall show, he has
ventured beyond his depth.
Before proceeding to deal with each of the pamphlets in
detail, we must allow ourselves a word on the four single-sheH
leaflets which accompany them, one in each pamphlet. These
leaflets contain quotations from various " authorities," designed
to show that Judaism has no political bearing, that Judaism
is not a Nationality but a Religion, that Jews can " identify "
themselves completely with Englishmen, and so forth. They
are of themselves sufficient to discredit the cause which they are
meant to establish. Take first the letter on " Zionism at the
Universities," which was sent by twenty-five " graduates and
members of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London "
to the Jewish Chronicle in April, 1909 (on the occasion of an
interview with Mr. Norman Bentwich) and is now reprinted and
circulated with Sir Philip Magnus1 pamphlet. These twenty-five
gentlemen " deeply deplore the statement that Jews are not
and can never be, ' entirely English in thought,' " and assert
that " when an alien [i.e., presumably an alien Jew] has become
naturalised, he is an Englishman in his rights and obligations,
and we hold that it is his dutv to see to it that his children shall
grow up. as Jews, ' entirely English in thought ' — as English
in aspiration, interest and zeal as those who are ' descended
from ancestors who have mingled their blood with other
Englishmen for generations.' ' These gentlemen have evidently
fallen into an elementary confusion between political duties
and aspirations on the one hand and spiritual traditions and
ideals on the other. The position of the honest mid conscious
Jew in a modern state may present some difficulties (theoretical
rather than practical), but they can be met when once the tacts
are honestly recognised. They are not to be solved by shallow
sophisms which glide away from the real issues involved. Take.
again, the quotations from the late Chief Rabbi's articles in the
Nineteenth Century (July, 1878, and December, 1881), with
which Mr. Montefiore presents his readers. " We are simply
Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or Germans, as the case may l>e.
certainly holding particular theological tenets and practising
special religious ordinances." Has anybody ever defined the
" particular theological tenets " which all Jews hold, or round
even a bare minimum of " religious ordinances " which all Jews
obey? "We regard all mankind as brethren." Of course we
do ; but that recognition of the brotherhood of man is closely
bound up with the sense of separateness, with the feeling that a
Jew is a Jew, and a non-Jew is a non-Jew. " We regard as
apostates those of our fellow-Jews who abandon their faith."
This is true if by " abandon their faith " we mean " undergo
baptism " ; but everybody knows that a Jew may abandon
every single article of traditional Jewish belief and practice,
and still call himself a Jew and be regarded as a Jew by Jews
and Gentiles alike. And so one might take every sentence of
the two passages quoted from the late Chief Rabbi's articles,
and show that it is either equivocal or irrelevant to his point.
Rut it is with the leaflet enclosed in Mr. Wolfs pamphlet that we
reach high-water mark. Here we have the opinions of two
Jews whose opinions on Judaism as a religion must really carry
weight. They are Signor Luigi Luzzatti, an Italian politician,
who has been known, we believe, to extol the Christian Gospels
at. the expense of the Jewish Law, and M. Joseph Reinach, a
French politician, who throughout a long career has maintained
scarcely the slenderest connection with Jews and Judaism.
These are the teachers, O Israel ! These are the men who are
brought forward to tell us that " Judaism is not a Nationality,
but a Religion " — two men who, if " religion " were really
the test of Judaism, would find it hard to establish their
claim to the name of Jew. There is something almost
inconceivably fatuous in the use of these two names by men
who want to deny that there is anything but a religious bond
to unite Jews. One is tempted to believe that Mr. Wolf is
having a joke at the expense of his readers. By comparison
with this triumph of paraJdox Mr. Laurie Magnus' achievement
in bringing in evidence the President of the Central Conference
of American Rabbis (1917) pales into insignificance ; though
it is obvious that a Rabbi who speaks of Rabbis as "messengers
of the Lord of Hosts " is so far from understanding the
traditional Jewish point of view that he confuses the function
of a Rabbi with that of a Prophet. However, it is not to be
expected that men who can impress Luzzatti and Reinach into
the service of " religion " should have any qualms about an
American Rabbi. Of course, this whole system of citing
" authorities " — and such " authorities " ! — is little better than
childish, and is itself one of the best proofs of the poverty of
the anti-Zionist case.
We pass now from the leaflets to the four pamphlets,
taking them in order of antiquity.
SIR PHILIP MAGNUS' "JEWISH ACTION AND
JEWISH IDEALS."
Sir Philip Magnus sets himself to answer the question why
it is that the Jews, in whom the desire for a restoration to
Palestine has always been so strong, have yet done little or
nothing to bring about by their own exertions " the restoration
of the political independence, to which so many confidently
look forward as the forerunner of the Messianic age."1 " It
might have been thought," he says, " that a people, racially
one, united even in dispersion by such ties as a common language,
trustworthy traditions, a glorious past, and a sacred mission,
1 P. 3.
would have been capable of worthier efforts for the restoration
of their nationality than any which the history of nearly eighteen
centuries records.''1 It is not that the national idea in
Judaism is " a vague yearning and nothing more " ; if it had
beeo that, we should not have seen " the success that has
attended the recent efforts of a few well-meaning agitators to
band together numbers of poor Jewish refugees by the hope
of a return to Palestine."2 But the note struck by the Choveve
Zion " vibrated only in the hearts and memories of those who
heard it .... its vitality was still too feeble to touch
the springs of action."3 Why is this ?
By way of answer. Sir Philip Magnus suggests that " the
idea is but the mental image of a mission to be otherwise-
fulfilled."4 It is the destiny of Israel, " sprung from a single
family, which grew into a tribe, to develop into a nation, and
ultimately to become a scattered people."5 The same mission
which called the Jews out of Egypt into Palestine called them
at a later date out of Palestine into exile. " It may be — who
can say ?— that Zion will again become the centre of God's cult.
But Zion secured by the goodwill of foreign Powers is a vision
which no true prophet ever saw."6 So the Jewish national idea
is to be realised in the abandonment of Jewish nationality, and
the Jews arc to be " witnesses of the Lord," whose " duty is in
testifying, by their separate existence, to God's superintending
Providence, and by their individual lives to the abiding laws of
right and to the essential truths of religion."7 Of course, the
lot of all Jews is not happy. But " it may be for some wise purpose
hidden from our view that the heart of the modern Pharaoh
has been hardened. ... As individuals we feel for them
[the suffering Jews] and work for them ; but . . . beneath
their present sorrows we recognise a force urging them to take
a fuller part in the great civilising mission assigned to them
as Israelites."8
It will be noticed that Sir Philip Magnus is a convinced
Jewish nationalist. He does not suggest that the Jews are
simply a " religious community," but recognises fully the ties
1 P. 4. ■ P. 5. 3 Pp. 5, 6. 4 P. 6. * lb. » Pp. 7, 8.
- P. 8. 8 Pp. 8, 9.
of " common language," and so forth. The only question on
which he differs from the general run of Jewish nationalists is
that of the practical consequences which should follow from
the recognition of Jewish nationality. Zionists adopt the
common-sense view that the right way to preserve a nationality
is to find it a home, to secure it so far as possible against
disruptive influences. But this is far too simple an idea
for Sir Philip Magnus. His view is a much more subtle
one. For him Jewish nationality is something so sublime
that it can be realised only by being abandoned. Not
because Jewish nationality is a false idea, but precisely
because it is a true idea, the Jews must refuse to restore
their national life in Palestine.
Study of the Talmud is supposed to have produced in the
Jewish mind a tendency to super-subtlety ; but Zionists have no
reason to fear that the Jewish people will accept Sir Philip
Magnus' theory of the obligations of Jewish nationality in
preference to their own.
But what, indeed, are the obligations of Jewish nationality
according to Sir Philip Magnus ? We look in vain for an answer.
We are told that the mission of the Jews is to " testify " by their
separate existence to God's providence and by their individual
lives to the abiding laws of right, etc. But how is their separate
existence to be maintained ? And what is to be the guiding rule
of their individual lives ? It seems scarcely conceivable, but
Sir Philip Magnus has no word to say in answer to these crucial
questions. Yet it is on the answer to these questions that
everything depends. You may argue till the end of time whether
Jews are or should be a nation or not, whether the business of
Jews is to " testify," or to do something else, without getting an
inch further. What the plain man wants to know is what is to
be done. We have in countries like England an obvious drift
away from Judaism, a tendency on the part of the younger
generation of Jews to lose hold of their language, of their
" trustworthy traditions," of their religion, of everything
distinctively Jewish that they can get rid of. We had in Russia
at the time when Sir Philip Magnus first wrote his sermon (we
have, fortunately, no longer) millions of Jews ground down by
persecution and restrictions. What is to be done ? Is the
8
magic word " testify " sufficient to bring back the indifferent
to the fold, and to give the suffering hope and strength to carry
on their unequal struggle ? And if it is not — as assuredly it is
not — how can it be seriously put forward as an alternative to
the Zionist ideal, which is to myriads of Jews an incentive to
practical and faithful work in the cause of their people ?
And this notion of " testifying " — what is there in it of sub-
stance ? Effective " testifying " needs two parties. It demands
not only that certain people " testify," but also that certain other
people take note of their testimony. But if the history of the
past two thousand years proves anything, it proves that the
Jews as a .scattered race cannot get the necessary hearing from the
world. Jewish idealism, Jewish religious faithfulness, Jewish
morality, receive scant recognition from the world ; but the
weaknesses and shortcomings of individual Jews are fastened
on and made a reproach to the whole Jewish people. That is
an unpleasant faet, but still a fact, not to be charmed out of
existence by sanctimonious phrases. And another fact of some
relevance is this — that the Jews who talk loudest about
" testifying " are not those who are most unswerving in their
loyalty to Jewish tradition. The Jew of the Ghetto, always
misunderstood and often despised, who bases his whole life on
the beliefs and observances of his fathers, does not claim to be
" testifying " or " fulfilling a mission." It is the comfortable
assimilated Jew who uses these phrases to cover up the emptiness
of his own Judaism.
Jewish nationalism demands above all things an honest
attempt to understand and to grapple with the complex problems
presented by the situation of the Jewish people in the modern
world. The Zionist contribution to the solution of those
problems may raise difficulties, may be open to criticisms.
But at least it is a real attempt at a solution, and it is not affected
by platitudes about the " mission " of Jewry. A single breath
of reality blows to fragments the unsubstantial fabric of words
which Sir Philip Magnus presents to a people weary of exile and
longing for a solid foot of earth whereon to live, to grow, to
realise the ideals which have preserved it as one people through
centuries of persecution and of assimilation.
9
Mr. CLAUDE MONTEFIORE'S "NATION OR
RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY ? "
Mr. Montefiore takes us into a very different world. We
have in his pamphlet the ideas of a man who has studied and
thought, who tries to understand the point of view of those
from whom he differs, whose business is not to obscure funda-
mental divergences of view by ambiguous words. It would be
unfair to him to attempt a brief summary of an essay which is
full of suggestive ideas ; and it is beyond our purpose here to
follow and criticise in detail his reading of Jewish history. It
must suffice to state the fundamental point of difference between
his view and the Zionist view of the proper line of development
for Judaism, and to show why in our opinion his view is not the
right one.
For Zionists it is an axiom that what Judaism needs most
of all at the present time is a new movement of concentration.
Throughout Jewish history it is concentration and not diffusion
that has preserved the Jewish spirit and the Jewish way of life.
What has rendered possible the survival of the Jewish people
and of Judaism since the Jewish State was overthrown is the
fact that in every period there has been somewhere a strong
centre of Jewish life and learning, which has served as a reservoir
whence all the scattered sections of Jewry could draw vitality.
In Babylon, in Spain, in Germany, and most recently in Poland,
such centres have existed. To-day, as a result of various causes
which it would take too long to detail here, Jewry is or is coming
to be without a centre, and is falling to pieces in consequence ;
and this disruption of Jewry is inevitably accompanied by a
weakening and disintegration of Judaism. Considered in this
aspect, the movement for a return to Palestine is the natural
reply to this threat to Jewry and Judaism. It means
reintegration instead of disintegration ; it means the creation
of a new unifying force in Jewish life — and a force which will
be not only unifying, but also creative, since Palestine has this
advantage over all the temporary centres of the exile, that it
has an abiding place in the consciousness of the Jew, and is bound
up with all that is fundamentally Jewish.
It will be observed that this Zionist attitude postulates
an indissoluble connection between the Jewish people and
10
Judaism ; and Mr. Montefiore, we believe, would admit that.
when once that postulate is admitted, the Zionist position follows
as a matter of course. But he does not admit the postulate,
except as an historical fact. He realises that historically Jewry
and Judaism have always been associated ; but he is impatient
of an association which seems to him to hamper Judaism, to
prevent it from achieving the empire which is due to it as a
universal religion. He wants Judaism to cast off the remnants
of tribalism and nationalism, to " take its place among the
universal religions of the world,"1 to compete with Christianity
(though he does not say this in so many words) for the soul of
the European. That is his alternative to Zionism. There is no
juggling with the word " nationalism," no pretending that the
way to preserve the Jewish nationality is to destroy it. The
Jewish nationality is to go, and Judaism is to remain as one
of the universal religions — as the religion of such Englishmen
or Frenchmen or Greeks or Jews as may be persuaded to adopt
it for the sake of its universal truths.
There is a superficial attractiveness about this ideal of
Mr. Montefiore's. To make Judaism no longer the exclusive
creed of a despised race, but a faith counting its adherents
by millions in every civilised country ; no longer tolerated
as a quaint survival from the days of tribal religions, but
welcomed as a path to salvation by an ever-growing number
of gentiles — that is at least an intelligible aim for the Jew.
and one which may for a moment seem to make the Jewish
struggle worth while, to give meaning and purpose to the long
tragedy of Jewish history. But only for a moment. For it
is not the Jew in us, but the European, who finds this prospect
fascinating. Once look at the vision with Jewish eyes, and
it loses its sublimity. The Jewish ideal, the ideal of the
Prophets, demands the perpetuation of the Jewish people and
the never-ending attempt to embody in its national life the
will of God, the law of righteousness : and it sees that attempt
ultimately crowned with sneeess, and the nations of the earth
coming up of their own accord to do homage to the God of
Israel, who is also the God of the universe. Beside that mag-
nificent conception the ideal of Mr. Montefiore — a Judaism
1 P. 15.
11
competing for souls, inevitably cheapening its wares to make
them acceptable, and content to regard the number of its
professed adherents as a measure of its worth — appears mean
and petty. The Jewish people has struggled and suffered for
the Prophetic ideal. Will it now abandon that ideal for one
immeasurably inferior ? Assuredly not.
But the sacrifice, even if it could be made, would be made
in vain. For this notion of Judaism as a world-religion, divested
of its historical and national associations, is a mere chimera.
It is possible to construct in thought an abstract Judaism, no
longer bound up with Jewish history and national consciousness,
but yet differing in its religious tenets and its moral outlook
from Christianity. But the only Jews who want a Judaism
of that kind are those whose outlook is already penetrated
through and through with conceptions derived from Christianity.
Of this truth Mr. Montefiore is himself a conspicuous example.
Writings of his later in date than the address here in question
reveal his sympathies as lying on the side of Christianity where
there is a conflict between Jewish and Christian conceptions.
He is on the Christian side in tending to shift the centre of
authority from the impersonal law to the heart of the individual ;
in preferring altruistic love to impartial justice as the foundation
of ethical conduct ; in regarding marriage as an indissoluble
sacramental covenant rather than as a human institution ;
and so forth.1 In fact, his whole conception of what
" religion " is reflects Christian and not Jewish ideas.
In saying this we are far from impugning the reality
or the sincerity of Mr. Montefiore's Jewishness. His
conspicuous services to his people — the Jewish people — would
sufficiently dispose of any such suggestion. But the new wine
which he wishes to pour into Jewish bottles is Christian wine ;
and if the future of Judaism were left in the hands of those
who think and feel as he does, Judaism might, indeed, become
" one of the universal religions of the world," but it would do
so by becoming indistinguishable in essentials from the dominant
religion of Europe.
1 On Mr. Montefiore's attitude to Christianity see Achad ha-Am's
essay, " Judaism and the Gospels " (English translation in the Jewish
Review, Vol. I., pp. 203-229.)
12
Mr. LAURIE MAGNUS' "ZIONISM AND
THE NEO-ZIONISTS."
Mr. Laurie Magnus' contribution to the anti-Zionist cam-
paign may be dismissed with a very few words. On the positive
side he has nothing to offer except the platitudes about
" serving some divine end " and being " a witness and a priest "
with which his father has already regaled us. On the negative
side he gives us little more than a discursive and rather flippant
criticism of certain Zionist utterances, which is partly justified
but is wholly irrelevant to the real question. His method is
very simple. Assume that modern Zionism is concerned with
nothing more important than the establishment of a " Jewish
State" as an end in itself: set over against this purely imaginary
conception of Zionism one or two flaming passages from Isaiah :
and the overthrow of Zionism is complete. There is no need
for understanding or for logic. " We are " — so Mr. Laurie
Magnus interprets the demands of Zionism — " we are to be
citizens of the country in which we live ; we are to be members
of the State of Palestine ; we are to cherish the Zion of Hebrew
hopes."1 Obviously no Zionist can ever have imagined that
any individual Jew would be at one and the same time a
citizen of the Jewish State and a citizen of another State.
But what does it matter, so long as the " neo-Zionists "
are soundly rated by this self-appointed spokesman of the
" orthodox Jew " ?
This sort of stuff may have been excusable fifteen years
ago, when Zionism was little understood in this country, and
when also the Zionist movement itself had not reached equili-
brium, and it was possible, by fastening on isolated Zionist
utterances which did less than justice to the fundamental realities
of Zionism, to seem to convict the movement out of the mouths
of its own champions of having a narrow horizon and being
dependent on unstable political combinations. But the last
two years — to go back no further — have produced a Zionist
literature in the English language, in which he who runs may
read that Zionists do not regard a Jewish State as an end in
itself, that they care little about a Jewish State as such, that
1 P. ll.
13
their concern is about a stable home for the Jewish people and
for Judaism, where the Jewish people may be able once more
to prove itself worthy of the glorious vision of Isaiah. Mr.
Magnus has either read that literature, or he has not. If he
has, his failure to take account of it is inexcusable. If he has
not, it must be left to him to formulate canons of controversy
which will justify him in attacking a movement without taking
the trouble to find out what it has to say for itself.
Mr. LUCIEN WOLFS "THE JEWISH
NATIONAL MOVEMENT."
In Mr. Lucien Wolf Zionism has a more dangerous opponent
than any of his three collaborators, because he is more dexterous
than they and more determined to " dish " Zionism at all costs.
His method is highly ingenious. He sets out apparently to give
a sympathetic account of the Jewish national movement, and
it is only when he is well on the road that we discover his real
motive — which is to advance certain well-worn arguments
against Zionism under the guise of an historical study. The
pamphlet, for all its parade of learning and objectivity, betrays
ignorance of the subject and is full of misrepresentations.
This may seem a serious charge to level against a writer of
Mr. Wolf's distinction, but we shall have no difficulty in sub-
stantiating it — the difficulty will lie rather in so limiting our
choice of examples as not to tire the reader.
(1) To begin with, Mr. WTolf shows himself by his silence
entirely ignorant of the considerable body of modern Hebrew
literature in which the ideas of Jewish nationalism were devel-
oped and crystallised. He does not mention Krochmal or
Lilienblum or Smolenskin ; he refers to Achad ha-Am only
in a footnote, in connection with Pinsker's Auto-Emancipation .
This ignorance is itself sufficient to rob his account of the Jewish
national movement of any value. What should we say of a
writer who set out to give an account of the Polish national
movement in entire (though unconfessed) ignorance of the
Polish literature on the subject ?
(2) Mr. Wolf shows not the slightest understanding of
the real forces of Jewish nationalism. He tells us, for instance.
14
that in the struggle between Yiddish and Hebrew " The Yiddish-
ists, of course, won," and that their victory "was not without
a certain formal sanction, for in 1903, at a conference of ardent
young Yiddish intellectuals, held at Czernowitz, Yiddish was
solemnly proclaimed the Jewish national language."1 There
is something delightfully naive in the notion that Hebrew can
cease to be the national language because the " Yiddishists "
say that it is not, and that any pronouncement of the Czernowitz
conference, or of any other conference, could affect the question
one way or the other. The fact is that, while Yiddish is of course
much more widely used as a spoken language than Hebrew,
its claim to be " the national language " of the Jewish people
is simply grotesque. Large sections of the Jewish people never
have known Yiddish ; large sections turn their backs on it
as soon as they can acquire a European language. Hebrew
not only remains the one language in which all Jews as such
have a share ; it is also becoming more and more a language
of life. Mr. Wolf's statement that " Hebrew remains the
linguistic luxury of their [the Zionists'] elect "2 shows that
he is ignorant of the immense strides made by living Hebrew
during the last generation. There are — or were before the war —
scores of Hebrew periodicals, daily as well as weekly and
monthly ; and in Palestine — which, though Mr. Wolf does not
seem to know it, is the centre of the Jewish national movement —
Hebrew is the mother-tongue of the younger generation of Jews.
The " Yiddishists " are a few misguided enthusiasts who object
to Hebrew because they object to Jewish nationalism. They
are inspired not by love of Yiddish, but by fear of Hebrew.
The truth is that the Bundists, whom Mr. Wolf represents as
the real Jewish nationalists, are thorough-going assimilants,
using Yiddish because it is in fact the language of the Jewish
masses, but opposed to Palestine, to Hebrew, to everything
that has a national value for Jews. At the recent All-Russia
Jewish Conference, attended by over five hundred delegates, a
resolution embodying the Jewish claim to Palestine was adopted
all but unanimously — the only dissentients being some three dozen
Hundist delegates, who left the meeting in protest. That is
a measure both of the " nationalist " attitude of the Bund and
1 Pp. 8, 9. a P. 0.
15
of the extent to which it represents the mind of Russian
Jewry.
(3) Mr. Wolf pays a good deal of attention to Pinsker's
pamphlet Auto-Emancipation, which is one of the three works
mentioned at the head of his essay. " Pinsker," he says,
" . . . . does not even mention Palestine. He .... even
recognises the patent absence of Jewish national consciousness
as a formidable obstacle to the realization of his plan."1 This
is what Pinsker actually says : —
The national consciousness, which formerly
existed only in the latent condition of a
barren martyrdom, manifested itself before
our eyes in the masses of the Russian and
Rumanian Jews in the form of an irresis-
tible movement towards Palestine.
In this sentence Pinsker both mentions Palestine and shows
that he recognises the existence of a Jewish national conscious-
ness which is bound up with Palestine. Mr. Wolf, therefore,
is actually ignorant of the contents of a pamphlet which
he himself picks out as one of the important works on his
subject.
So far as to the extent and accuracy of Mr. Wolf's know-
ledge. We proceed now to give a few instances from his
pamphlet of half- truths which are calculated to produce a
false impression in the minds of those who do not know the
facts.
(1) " The Jews," he writes, " were always primarily, and
above everything else, a religious community, and their
national life in Palestine was only a phase, a social expedient,
of their greater history as a Church."2 Mr. Wolf must know
very well — if he did not, Mr. Montefiore could have told him —
that the early history of the Jewish people was cast in a time
when the modern distinction between " nation " and •* religious
community " did not exist. But in saying that " the Jews
were always primarily a religious community " he
is trying to suggest to the unlearned that even in the days of
1 P. 6. s P. 2.
16
their full national life the Jews were somehow distinguished
from other contemporary nations by the fact that their cohesion
was based on religion. That is not the fact. The cohesion
of the Edomites or the Moabites was based on religion neither
less nor more than that of the Jews. The Jews differed from
these other nations in having a purer national religion, not in
being a Church as opposed to a nation. And to anybody who
knows Jewish history it is almost superfluous to point out that
at no period could the House of Israel be adequately described
by the term " Church " in its modern sense.
(2) Mr. Wolf of course makes much of Napoleon's Great
Sanhedrin. and he says that " even in Eastern Europe ....
scarcely a word of protest was heard " against its anti-nationalist
declaration.1 He would have his readers infer that the Jewries
of Eastern Europe somehow acquiesced in the abandonment
of Jewish nationality. That is absurd. Representatives of
the Jews in certain western countries (not including England)
met in the Sanhedrin and accepted, under duress, certain
formulae which were held to make Judaism compatible with
citizenship.2 Their resolutions, which were or seemed to be
necessitated by their own political exigencies, could not touch
in any way the realities of Judaism, and could not have am
interest for the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe, whose
circumstances were entirely different. And in any case, the
Jewish masses were not then organized, and had no representative
body through which they could have protested even if the
necessity for a protest could have entered their heads.
(3) Mr. Wolf says that the Zionists " eventually found
that they could not oppose" '"the principle of self-government
and equal rights for all nationalities " (in Russia).3 Mr. Wolf
surely knows that the recognition of that principle is not a
concession wrung from Zionists, but is a natural consequence
1 P. 4.
7 Mr. Wolf attaches exaggerated importance to the resolutions of
the Sanhedrin, which attracted very little attention until they were
resuscitated by the Jewish "reformers" in Germany. See Mr. H. Sacher's
pamphlet "Jewish Emancipation: The Contract Myth" (English Zionist
Federation, 1917), p. 15.
■ I\ 12.
17
of the Zionist point of view. But what Zionists maintain
is that the claim for Jewish national rights in Russia is a local
matter, whereas the demand for a national centre in Palestine
touches the whole of Jewry.
(4) Zionists " declare," says Mr. Wolf, " that, where
emancipation does not exist, it is not worth striving for, and,
where it does exist, it is no remedy."1 This is a gross travesty
of the Zionist view that emancipation has not solved and cannot
solve the Jewish problem. Zionists do not maintain anything
so absurd as that emancipation is not worth striving for.
We could multiply examples, but enough has been said
to substantiate our charge of ignorance and misrepresentation.
And be it remembered that Mr. Wolf's essay was written
originally not for Jewish readers in particular, but for the
readers of the Edinburgh Review, who might be expected not
to have such acquaintance with the subject as would enable
them to detect his ignorance and discount his half-truths.2
With that we may safely leave Mr. Wolf. Any fair-minded
student of Zionism will know how much weight to attach to
the suggestion of such an opponent that Zionist doctrines
" may be calculated to wreck whatever chances of liberty and
happiness there may be ... . for the seven millions of unhappy
Jews in Eastern Europe."3 Indeed, the absurdity of that
suggestion has since been proved conclusively by the eman-
cipation of the Jews in free Russia, one effect of which has
been to give a great impetus to Zionism in Russian Jewry.
CONCLUSION.
(A) WHAT ZIONISM IS NOT.
We have now reviewed the case against Zionism as presented
by these four opponents, and have found that it rests with Sir
Philip Magnus on a sublime disregard of the realities of the
1 Pp. 13, 14.
2 The present writer, having heard Mr. Woirs essay delivered as a
lecture, and having learnt that it was to be published in the Edinburgh,
asked the editor of that Review for permission to submit an article setting
Zionism in its true light ; but the Editor replied that, having accepted Mr.
Wolfs article, he could not print another in the opposite sense.
3 P. 14.
18
Jewish position, with Mr. Montefiore on a desire to get rid of
the national elements in Judaism, with Mr. Laurie Magnus on
refusal or inability to understand Zionism, and with Mr. Lueien
Wolf on ignorance partly real and partly assumed. It is fitting
that in conclusion we should attempt a clear statement of
Zionist aims, so as to leavrc no further excuse (if any existed
before) for misunderstanding and misrepresentation. And first it
is necessary to clear the ground by stating what Zionism is not.
Zionism does not regard the creation of certain political
conditions in Palestine as an end in itself. Political action is
for Zionism a means, not an end.
Zionism does not regard the establishment of a " Jewish
State " in Palestine as a necessary means to the attainment of
its aims. Even Herzl, whose use of the term Judenstaat has
given rise to so much misunderstanding on this point, did not
demand such conditions as are suggested to English minds by
the phrase " Jewish State." This is, in substance, what Herzl
said in a Committee on the Programme of the First Zionist
Congress in 1897 :
" People did not understand even the title of the pamphlet
[Der Judenstaat]. I did not propose einen jildischen Staat
(a Jewish State), but I proposed to give the territory the
name ' Judenstaat ' (Jews' State). Had I wanted a State
• like all other states of the world, I would have labelled it
as ' ein jiidischer Staat', but I did not dream of making
it like any other State. I was thinking of a Jewish territory,
well protected and well organized, run by a modern Company
on the lines of national and progressive colonization. Such
territory I would call k Judenstaat,' but it was far from
my mind to compete with the existing empires, kingdoms
or republics by the creation of a new sort of kingdom. All
the protests against this non-existent idea are mere clap-
trap. We want a Jewish Gemeinwesen (Commonwealth)
with all securities for freedom."1
Zionism does not contemplate the establishment in Palestine
of any control by Jews to the detriment of the rights of any other
nationality or religious sect.
1 See Mr. Nahum Sokolow's article, " How the Basle Programme was
made," in the Zionist Review, October, 1917.
19
Zionism does not demand of any Jew a double political
allegiance, and does not threaten in any way the political rights
enjoyed by Jews in countries other than Palestine. Zionists have
never suggested that Palestine could claim the political allegiance
of a Jew who chose to live outside Palestine as a citizen of this
or that State ; and the rights of citizenship enjoyed by Jews
in various countries would be in no way affected by the fact
that a larger or smaller number of Jews owed no political
allegiance except that which sprang from their being members
of the Hebrew national settlement in Palestine.
Zionism does not aim essentially at relieving the economic
situation of the Jewish masses. The opening-up of Palestine
to extensive Jewish immigration should have beneficial economic
consequences for those Jews who at present suffer from over-
crowding and excessive competition ; but those consequences
would be a by-product of Zionism, and even if immigration
into Palestine were so gradual that the large Jewish centres
were not sensibly relieved, the real aims of Zionism could still
be accomplished.
Zionism is not simply a reflex of anti-Semitism ; it is not
simply an attempt to remove or mitigate the evils of anti-Semitism ;
and its success will not necessarily obliterate anti-Semitism. The
sufferings of the Jews have naturally been one of the motive
forces of Zionism, but they are not the deepest or the most
abiding motive force, nor is the desire to escape from anti-
Semitism or from persecution the most potent incentive to
effort for the re-establishment of Jewish national life in Palestine.
And since the existence of anti-Semitism depends not only on
the position of the Jews, but also on the prevalent state of
mind and feeling among gentiles, it follows that the re-
establishment of Jewish national life cannot be an infallible
cure for the evils of anti-Semitism. Recognition of this fact
is of course quite consistent with a belief that the accomplishment
of the aims of Zionism will at least mitigate those evils by
removing or diminishing one or more of the contributory causes
of anti-Semitic prejudice.
20
(B) WHAT ZIONISM IS.
What, then, is Zionism ? What is its underlying idea ?
What are its practical aims ?
The underlying idea of Zionism is that of Jewish nationality.
But when Zionists say that the Jews are a " nation " and not a
" religious community," they do not discard a great spiritual
heritage for a dubious political future, or offer the birthright
of Jewish ideals in exchange for a diplomatic mess of pottage,
or attempt to transfer Jewish allegiance from the God of Israel
to a petty State. They simply reject, as shallow and unhistorical,
the newfangled philosophy of Judaism which would have us
believe that, because numbers of Jews have acquired citizenship
in western countries, and have adopted the speech, the manners
and the habits of western peoples, therefore the spiritual heritage
of Israel can be or ought to be whittled away to the religion
of a sect of Englishmen or Frenchmen. They reassert the
old conception of the unity of Israel as an ethnic group whose
life and value depend on the vitality of those ideals for which
and by virtue of winch it has struggled on through thousands
of years of varying fortune.
That, in baldest outline, is the theory of Zionism. Its
practice follows naturally from that theory. In practice,
Zionism aims at combating those forces which make for the
disruption of the unity of Israel by a new movement of con-
centration, building upon that sentiment with which the Jewish
sense of unity, the Jewish group-sense, is most indissolubly
connected — the love of Palestine. The Jewish love of Palestine
differs from the love of any other nation for its country in that
it is felt by individuals who have no personal contact with
Palestine, who visualise it not as hill and vale and meadow-
land, but as the source of their spiritual being and the goal of
their people's wanderings, as the Holy Land and the Land of
Promise. But Palestine as a spiritual centre and Palestine
as the actual home of Jewish national life are not inconsistent
conceptions ; rather the one is the necessary complement of
the other. To-day it is more apparent than ever that Palestine
as a symbol of the past and a hope for the distant future no
longer retains its empire over the Jewish heart and mind so fully
as to be an effective guarantee of the unity of Israel. It is,
21
or is becoming, a spent force. It needs the reinforcement, the
new impulse, that only actuality can give. Palestine has to
become once again the home of the Jewish people — in idea
the home of the whole Jewish people, in concrete fact the home
of a settlement of Jews strong enough in numbers, in energy,
in character, in idealism, to build up a commonwealth in which
all that is distinctive of the Jewish type will have free play,
and which will stand for the scattered hosts of Israel and for
the world at large as the pattern and exemplar of Jewish life
and Jewish civilization.
How are the foundations of such a commonwealth to be
laid?
Obviously, the first requisite is a solid material basis. The
Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, reinforced so far as necessary
by immigration from other countries, and aided so far as
necessary by Jewish capital from other countries, must till
the soil of Palestine, develop its neglected resources, discover
and turn to account the commercial and industrial possibilities
which it offers. But that is not all. All that might be done,
and yet nothing be done. A commonwealth of Jews is not
necessarily a Jewish commonwealth, even if it consist of a
million or five million Jews who are economically prosperous
and socially and politically free. A Jewish commonwealth
must find its principle of cohesion and its justification not merely
in the economic or the political sphere, but in the sphere of
sentiment and ideals. Let those who lay the foundations of
the commonwealth feel themselves to be the custodians of
Israel's cherished traditions and hopes ; let them be inspired
by the consciousness that they are restoring their nation to
life and vigour in its ancestral land, reviving its ancient language,
and re-creating its civilization under modern conditions — and
the commonwealth of Jews becomes a Jewish commonwealth,
secure of its power, sooner or later, to serve as a centre of
attachment for the whole of Jewry and a source of renewed
vitality for Judaism.
Zionism, then, is concerned not only with the material
possibilities of Palestine, but also with the spiritual capabilities
of the Jewish people. Are there in Jewry men of the right
type who will go to Palestine to lay the foundations of the Jewish
22
commonwealth, or who, unable to go themselves, will help the
work each in his own place and his own way ? The experience
of the last generation makes it possible to answer this question
unhesitatingly in the affirmative. In Palestine itself some
forty Jewish agricultural and urban settlements have been
founded, and have struggled through their early difficulties to
a fair measure of prosperity ; and the pioneer settlers have
made the Hebrew language their own and are bound together
and made one by the consciousness that they are doing the
national work of Israel. Outside Palestine the call of the
national revival has been heard by many to whom Judaism
had become a mere survival or a matter of complete indifference;
and while Zionism naturally sets up no inquisition over the
individual, it remains true that wherever Zionism goes deeper
than mere lip-service to a programme, it leads men back to
Jewish study, back to the Hebrew language, back to a sense of
Jewish values, back to some form or other of real reunion with
Jewish tradition and Jewish ideals. On the side of the Jewish
people, then, Zionism has done — not. indeed all that needs
doing — but a great deal to reawaken the Jewish consciousness
where it was latent, and to give it a definite objective where
it was in danger of atrophying for the want of one.
But what of Palestine ? If Jewish idealism turns more
and more irresistibly in that direction, are the conditions such.
or likely to become such, that it will be able to achieve positive
results ? Or is it doomed to expend itself in a futile struggle
against realities ?
Here we are brought lace to face with the "political"
aspect of Zionism that aspect which has been so fruitful of
misunderstanding and of calumny.
Zionism demands the development of Palestine by Jewish
hands and brains with a view to the creation of the Jewish
commonwealth ; and it is therefore a question of the first moment
to Zionists whether Palestine is or is not open to Jewish im-
migration and the employment of Jewish capital in the purchase
of land and the opening up of the country in every possible way.
For that reason Zionism is necessarily interested in the political
position of Palestine, and in certain circumstances it is bound
to concentrate a good deal of its attention on the political
23
problem. At the present time, for instance, when the political
future of Palestine is bound to become in the near future a
question for the world's statesmen, Zionists would be guilty
of criminal folly if they did not do all in their power to secure
that such conditions shall be established as will be most favour-
able to the building up of the Jewish commonwealth. Those
conditions obviously include immunity from external attack,
security of life and property, impartial administration of justice,
and explicit recognition of Palestine as the home-land of the
Jewish people. How these conditions will best be secured is
a question into which it is unnecessary here to enter. But
nobody can refuse to Zionists the right to attempt to win
sympathy for their aims from all who may have a voice in
determining the future of Palestine ; and in the presentation
of Zionist aims to the world it is necessary to bring out certain
considerations which do not spring from Jewish nationalism
itself, but have their roots in that complex of ideals, ambitions,
friendships, and rivalries which we call " international politics."
Considerations of this order are the commercial and strategic
importance of Palestine ; the desirability of taking Palestine
out of the cock-pit of international jealousies ; the rights of
the Jewish people as a " small nation " ; the ability of the
Jews, once re-established as a nation in Palestine, to perform
a civilising mission in the East and to serve as a harmonising
medium between East and West ; the beneficial effect of the
re-establishment of Jewish national life in Palestine on the
" Jewish problem " in those countries in which it is acute ; and
so forth. All these considerations are not of the essence of
Jewish nationalism ; if none of them existed (and the task
of Zionism would be easier if some of them did not exist), the
need for a unifying centre of Jewry and Judaism would be none
the less urgent. But in the actual circumstances they arc
relevant to the problem with which Zionism is concerned, and
the fact that Zionism makes legitimate use of them does not
affect its underlying aims in the slightest degree. Political
conditions may change a hundred times, but the " eternal
people " and its eternal ideals remain.
Zionism, then, has to take account of international politics
in order to secure such conditions in Palestine as will enable
it to realize its aims most securely and most quickly. The
24
present moment seems propitious. In many countries both
the government and public opinion arc better informed than
ever before about the meaning and the aims of Zionism, and
the sympathy of the gentile stands in marked contrast to the
hostility of a small but noisy section of Jews. Zionism needs
and values that sympathy, not because it holds out the promise
of some fifth-rate " Jewish State," but because it foreshadows
the possibility of resuming in the near future, under better
auspiees and with more assured steps, the interrupted work of
building up in Palestine the foundations of the Jewish common-
wealth— that commonwealth which will become in time the
nerve-eentre of Jewry and the visible embodiment of the Jewish
attitude to life, and through which Israel will become a more
effective force making for civilization, for progress, for right-
eousness.
It is in the light of this vision of Israel re-inspired and
inspiring anew, and not under the sway of petty political ambitions.
that Zionists have worked for a generation, and will continue
to work, despite the many obstacles in their path, despite the
indifference of some and the calumnies of others. The pace of
their work will be quickened if calumny can be silenced and
indifference turned into active help. Theirs is a task which
needs the energies of the whole of Israel, lint quickly or slowly,
easily or with difficulty, their work will proceed till it is
accomplished. "You are not bound to complete the work;
but you are not free to desist from it."
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DS Simon, (Sir) Leon
149 The case of the anti-
S57 Zionists